Huge shoutout to Ryan Kelly, BYU, the organizing committee,
and the ridiculously beautiful city/surrounding area of Provo, UT for putting on a world class conference.
I think I made it to every single cell proteomics meeting this year and this obviously featured a lot of single cell proteomics but also the other things.
Well encapsulated by John Yates (image stolen from Michael Shortreed).
Typically you might think you could skip the metabolomics or the imaging or the drug targeting talks because your brain is already full of proteomics stuff, right? Or maybe it wouldn't even be discussed at the meeting you went to. In the single cell stuff we're up against an enormous number of new variables, and maybe metric prefixes that requires we have the Wikipedia page on metric prefixes bookmarked because you forget how many zeroes a femto is. (Or whether there is a "p" in it). There is a lot to learn from these other fields right now as they're chipping away at the same problems we are - but from the opposite directions.
This meeting had
Spatial - intact proteins, and lipids and glycan/glycoprotein profiling
Subceullar - including cells split in half for imaging or to extract different molecules
Lipids and metabolites - from single cells, including multiple talks that make you step back and think about what our detection limits mean in a practical way. (See this recent post, this was a repeated topic of conversations).
Statistics and more statistics!
In situ probes - seriously - taking probes and removing material from inside intact cells to analyze
High elevation hikes
Actual real multi-omics. I'll have to check my notes to see who said it first, but the vast majority of "multi-omics" in the literature is when genomics people use two types of genomics technologies. Multiple groups here talked about how they analyze proteins, metabolites/lipids, transcripts from either the exact same tissue slice or cell. Or from the next one beside it.
Imaging with technologies you have to look up while they're talking
More applications than I thought were actually happening on this continent. Pharma is paying attention to this growing field and they're using it to do pharma things.
PTMs in single cells - from multiple groups, and I think something really ridiculous is coming that I didn't think was possible. Ultra high level paper watch alert from Yu-Ju Chen lab. We had long poster sessions and I couldn't make it to the corner to see what one of her students had back there.
"Single ion" mass spec allowing intact proteoform analysis by spatial
NanoDESI! And how to make one. Amazingly impressive technology
LC connections! Okay, that sounds weird, but this by Jenny from Vici (who was nice enough to sponsor a great lunch) was super important
(Jenny from Vici pictured, I took this one because I wanted those part numbers. Treat yourself to a cookie if you see the error in the image she was highlighting, making connections this small is tough stuff, even for illustrators).
As some of you weirdos are moving below 200 nanoliter/minute flow rates you have to get your systems plumbed even more precisely. Maybe that 0.1 uL dead volume in your system from an incorrect connection isn't a big deal at 300 nanoliter/min. Not ideal, but it won't ruin your day. What about when you go to 50 or even 20 nanoliter/min?
Loads of informatics! Big questions about FDR discussed everywhere and very practical discussions regarding the best possible spectral libraries to use.
Of course, great people everywhere, scary smart young scientists who say things like "I've only been doing mass spec for 6 months" after you've seen their work is stellar. Possibly some good mentors floating around having something to do with that as well.
And really really really good cookies at every break. Maybe it's easier to bake at this ridiculously high elevation?
And it isn't even over. Saturday morning there is a hands on workshop with vendors showing things like how to make a perfect nanofitting like this and how to prep single cells with the Tecan UNO (thank you Simon for setting me up with a personal demo already, I suspect they'll be very very popular today).
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